Sharing problem, possibly DHCP related

I have a 4-pc home network (wired) with a cable internet connection on my
computer through which the other computers also connect. All the computers
have XP Pro and 3 of them (including mine) have Pc-cillin with the firewall
set to Home Network. All computers are in the MSHome workgroup and all are in
the same subnet.

All computers can access the internet without problems. The other 3
computers can see and access each others shared folders. The only computer
which can see mine is the one without PC-Cillin. None of the others can
access the shared folders on my computer, inculding the one that can see it,
and I cannot access the shared folders on the other 2 computers that have
PC-Cillin. I know this sounds like PC-Cillin is the problem, but the other 2
computers that have it installed have no problems sharing and being shared.

The only way in which mine is different is that the ip address comes up as
manually assigned and the others are all DHCP assigned. When I run the
network setup wizard on my computer, the first time it comes up as unable to
complete and the second time it sets the address, but as manually assigned
instead of DHCP assigned. Is it meant to be like that because mine has the
cable connection?

When I do a search on any of the computers they can find each other,
including mine, but mine shows as being in an unknown folder, while the
others show as being in the MSHome folder. If I try to manually add my shared
folder to My Network Places on another computer I get a message saying the
folder is invalid.

Any assistance would be very much appreciated.

Rhyssa wrote:

I have a 4-pc home network (wired) with a cable internet connection on
my computer through which the other computers also connect. All the
computers have XP Pro and 3 of them (including mine) have Pc-cillin
with the firewall set to Home Network. All computers are in the MSHome
workgroup and all are in the same subnet.

All computers can access the internet without problems. The other 3
computers can see and access each others shared folders. The only
computer which can see mine is the one without PC-Cillin. None of the
others can access the shared folders on my computer, inculding the one
that can see it, and I cannot access the shared folders on the other 2
computers that have PC-Cillin. I know this sounds like PC-Cillin is
the problem, but the other 2 computers that have it installed have no
problems sharing and being shared.

The only way in which mine is different is that the ip address comes
up as manually assigned and the others are all DHCP assigned. When I
run the network setup wizard on my computer, the first time it comes
up as unable to complete and the second time it sets the address, but
as manually assigned instead of DHCP assigned. Is it meant to be like
that because mine has the cable connection?

When I do a search on any of the computers they can find each other,
including mine, but mine shows as being in an unknown folder, while
the others show as being in the MSHome folder. If I try to manually
add my shared folder to My Network Places on another computer I get a
message saying the folder is invalid.

Any assistance would be very much appreciated.

Do yourself a big favor and buy a cable/dsl router. Windows Internet
Connection Sharing (ICS) can be iffy. The way you have it set up now of
course your computer has an assigned IP address - it is the Internet
gateway. Here are some suggestions:

1. Buy a router, set all computers to get their IP addresses
automatically via DHCP on the router (which now acts as the gateway to
the Internet).

2. If you decide to stay with ICS, set all client computers to have
static IP addresses, assigning ones in the same subnet. I believe the
ICS gateway is 192.168.0.1; make the others 192.168.0.xx.

3. Make identical user accounts/passwords on all computers that will
share resources.

4. Any firewalls should be set to allow traffic from the lan IP range as
Trusted.

5. All Windows machines should have antivirus and firewall programs
installed.

Malke
--
MS MVP - Windows Shell/User
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"